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Comment by productizeme93 | Hacker News Reader

> The FTC says disclosures should be kept simple, such as “This is an ad for BRAND”, and should be prominent on each piece of media which contains that product.

Doesn't apply to movies, TV shows, and music videos right? Every once in awhile I see the 4th wall broken to make light of it being sponsored product placement, but it doesn't happen enough that I suspect the same sort of rules don't apply.

I actually think it'd be great to have it obvious ad messaging be embedded in movies for different scenes where it pops up in your face that "this is an ad for Bose" or "this is an ad for Pepsi." Having that front and center, especially if it destroys the value of the media some would be great. Because maybe then there'd be a little more concern around what it means to make quality.

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The Sony Ericson phone being in Bond is not the same as a phone review saying "you should buy this". I understand your general complaint, but I think here the FTC is basically trying to establish a line for the most egregious levels of "native" advertising that isn't being disclosed.

For what it's worth I have often seen stuff in credits pointing out what companies have provided things for a show on TV ("nobody watches the credits" well I do so your point is actually empirically false! Though I understand).

I think with this entire topic there are many knobs that can be turned. We might not have them set at the right level, and we can adjust. But it's totally not a binary thing. Though I would honestly be very up for much stricter disclosure rules on this point for things advertised to children.

My personal feeling is at one point in your life you learn that media is given access to stuff for advertising purposes, so every brand made visible is just "obviously" product placement. If there's an explicit endorsement really make it loud if it's an ad/all the conditions of the review. But I don't feel like watching Lydia Tar use a Macbook is really much of an endorsement of anything, and do not feel the need for this to be an ad (just like I don't need a disclaimer about Tar being an ad for the Berlin Philharmonic).

>The Sony Ericson phone being in Bond is not the same as a phone review saying "you should buy this"

Yeah, it's worst, because it's a psychological manipulative tactic.

On the contrary, I think the psychological manipulation of a product Association is fair game because it's inherent in The World At Large and every product and person.

On the other hand, undisclosed sponsored reviews gravitate towards false advertising or deceit.

The point isn't to cut down on psychological influence. The point is to cut down on deceit AKA false advertising

James Bond using a Sony doesn't deceive anyone. James Bond doesn't exist and doesn't have opinions.

If James Bond is using a Sony because they paid the movie makers 200k$ it's a different thing than seeing some random dude use it himself.

Yeah, filmmakers put extra effort I hiding a brand if it is not paying (eg. laptop stickers)

>The point isn't to cut down on psychological influence. The point is to cut down on deceit AKA false advertising

Psychological influence is also a deceit.

> Doesn't apply to movies, TV shows, and music videos right?

It certainly applies to movies and TV shows. Near the end of the credits (for US productions), there is almost always language like "Promotional consideration" and then a list of brands

>Near the end of the credits

“But the plans were on display…”

“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”

“That’s the display department.”

“With a flashlight.”

“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”

“So had the stairs.”

“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

They are entirely different concerns.

What is the false advertising when James Bond uses a Sony?

"A Sony X is the kind of high end product a person with the fictional sophisticated background of James Bond would use, as picked by the scriptwriter/director to flesh out the character", as opposed to "Sony is the brand that paid us more to put their shit on his hands on the movie".

What's your better solution? Stop the movie and have the actor playing Bond break the fourth wall and talk directly to the camera? Meanwhile, legal notices in the credits are expected. That's where they go and are negotiated.

As far as I can tell, if the reviewers want to include the disclaimer in their credits, that is also fine. They just cannot include it separately from the video.

>What's your better solution? Stop the movie and have the actor playing Bond break the fourth wall and talk directly to the camera?

Forbid product placement.

The relevant Tom Scott video: https://youtu.be/L-x8DYTOv7w

Movies don't hold themselves out as an unbiased reviewer.

Classic HN “what about” that’s completely wrong and voted to the top.

That sounds like a shallow dismissal to me. We got rules against that around here, bud.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Doesn't apply to movies, TV shows, and music videos right?

Don’t they disclose this in the credits?

Movies are exempt. Viewers of a movie know that the movie is entirely created content; no one thinks that if an actor says "I love Red Bull" that this is their personal opinion or an endorsement thereof.

This isn't clear if an influencer says "I love Red Bull" on their Instagram feed; do they genuinely love it, or were they paid to say that? This is the distinction the FCC wants made clear.

I disagree that movies should get a pass here, but I do agree that influencers are a very different beast. Young kids especially are at risk since they can't tell the difference between advertising and content even when it's in the form of television commercial breaks now confuse influencers and youtubers for actual friends.

This, more rules for thee but not for me.

Pepsi can pay $10MM for the main character in a kid's movie to drink a Pepsi.

But if a small board game company sends an influencer a free board game, an influencer is not allowed to review it.

Personally, I think having "background" props is much more insidious. At least with social media I know I can expect grift. Seeing someone drink Pepsi in a movie is more like seeing your friend drink Pepsi.

John likes Pepsi, and he's cool. Think I'll drink some.

More than Pepsi; cigarettes. This is the only way tobacco is really allowed to advertise anymore. This is why you see scenes of characters enjoyint cigarettes prominently even though it does nothing to move the story forward.

Let's be fair though, that actually happening in movies has dropped dramatically. So many people I know vape now, and there is basically no way you can make vaping look cool onscreen

> Let's be fair though, that actually happening in movies has dropped dramatically

It has dropped somewhat from the peak in 2005 to a little below the 1991 level by 2016. And we know from comparison of internal tobacco firm documents on product placement with their reports to the FTC that almost half of what the companies internally documented spending on product placement between 1978-1994 (that’s the latest the internal records that have been subject to outside examination go) were not reported to the FTC as spending on paid endorsements as required, and that that includes 100% of product placement spending in that period after 1988. [0]

And, we know that recogbizable branding is still displayed on screen and that with every other categort of goods that invariably, outside of news/documentary context, involves direct or in-kind payment for promotional purposes.

[0] https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7kd981j3

The only reason people think smoking "looks cool" is because of decades of aggressive advertising from cigarette companies, which seeped into the culture.

Decades? Try a century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torches_of_Freedom

Plenty of creative people smoke, drink, and engage in other vices. I'm not confident that any significant number of cases that people smoke in media is due to funding from big tobacco. When I would light up on stage and drink some beer during house shows, as a musician, I know I wasn't getting any funding for it. Do you have any articles about big tobacco paying authors, screenwriters, game designers, etc to include cigarettes in their content?

What about capnolagnia (smoking fetish) films and photos -- is the smut industry getting paid off by big tobacco?

> I'm not confident that any significant number of cases that people smoke in media is due to funding from big tobacco.

I’m fairly confident that much of it is, that spending on it is systematically not properly disclosed to the FTC, and that approximately 100% of the cases outside a documentary or newd cobtext involving a recognizable brand are paid (in cash or otherwise) product placement, the last bit the same as with non-tobacco brand placement, and the rest as has been documented through 1994 by internal tobacco documents compared to FTC reports, with no sudden shift after 1994 that would indicate a behavior change.

“newd” -> “news”, wasn’t aiming for a portmanteau of “nude” and “lewd”.

I'm pretty sure the "influencer" is allowed to review it, it just needs to be clearly disclosed. I'm not sure what would be actually prohibited.

It’s specifically endorsement they care about. Reviewing can be an endorsement if you say what you liked about the product. A critique wouldn’t need an ad placement.

If you watch e.g. Masterchef, they are very coy with how they phrase their product placements. They don’t endorse, they say something like “X contestant will have no problem getting up to temp on their stove” as the camera pans over the logo. They don’t spend longer than maybe 3 seconds featuring it. As far as I can tell, TV and movies play by the same rules, they just know what boundaries to not cross.

No, they endorse the products by doing that. And include the required disclosure in the credits.

This is the inexorable mean to which heavy government regulation inexorably regresses: The fantasy that large evildoers will lose some of their ill-gotten gains (for the IRS, billionaires privatizing gains and socializing losses... for the FTC, Pepsi being forced to disclose product placement) faces the brick wall of lawyers and lobbyists. So they aim at "softer targets": hassling middle class tax payers and businesses who don't have those lawyers and lobbyists.

Middle-class taxpayers doing payola marketing for very large companies to poison the well towards other middle-class taxpayers, yes.

Nobody thinks a movie is a representative endorsement or review. There is no such distinction for content creators.

This really isn’t hard to understand.

I doubt product placement falls under the same rules as endorsement, because there's no actual claims about the product, or preference towards it. They're just showing the object in use/place.

Even if a character states "monster is their favorite drink" that wouldn't constitute an endorsement, because it's simply the mark of a fictional character.

But influencers/actors/etc saying "monster is their favorite" is an altogether different thing, because a viewer would assume that's actually their opinion being stated -- that it's being endorsed "in fairness". [0]

The fundamental problem is deception, and product placement isn't deceptive (it's just hoping you see it enough you'll think it's "common"), but paid endorsements definitely can be.

[0] From the endorsement guide: https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/p204500_endorse...

Example 6 is about an actor who says a home fitness system is “the most effective and easy-to-use home exercise machine that I have ever tried.” One commenter asserted this would only be deceptive if the actor had not used the machine. The example is intended to illustrate why this statement is an endorsement and is not intended to address all the ways the statement could be deceptive or who could be liable for any such deception. The Commission notes, however, there are multiple ways in which the statement could be deceptive, including not representing the actor’s actual opinions or misleading consumers as to the machine’s effectiveness or ease of use.

Nobody considers a theatrical movie an unbiased review of the products the fictional characters are using.

Half the comments in here are some version of "what we can't review board games now?!?!1" when that's the opposite of the case. The problem is that "content creators" don't want to disclose what they're legally required to.

> But if a small board game company sends an influencer a free board game, an influencer is not allowed to review it.

Yes, they are, they aren’t allowed to fail to disclose the fact of the donation when reviewing it.

> Personally, I think having "background" props is much more insidious.

The FTC has power to deal with deceptive, not with insidious (the latter is dubious as a power of government at all under the First Amendment, but its clearly not, whether or not within the power of government broadly, not something Congress has by statute assigned to the FTC the way they have dealing with deceptive trade practices.)

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